'I Watched Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery & It Was Crazy'

Among many of his celebrity clientele, and in the media, he's known as the 'Vagina Whisperer', or the 'Designer Vagina Doctor'.

But his colleagues and close friends like to playfully refer to him as 'Vagilangelo' - a nickname Dr. Amir Marashi chuckles at as he leads me through the New York hospital where he works.

I've been intrigued by the notion of women paying big bucks to get the vagina of their dreams since reading about the "first ever designer vagina showcase" - an event which was timed to coincide with New York Fashion Week earlier this year.

So, I was delighted - and more than a little surprised - to receive a response from 'Vagilangelo' himself, inviting me to drop in to his practice one day to show me firsthand what he actually does.

Dr. Marashi, aka the 'Vagina Whisperer'

I'm greeted by Dr. Marashi, who is a board-certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist, in his downtown Brooklyn surgical centre. He explains that he's been in operating rooms since he was 10 years old, observing his father's surgeries in Iran. Recognising a gap in the field, he has specialised in vaginal cosmetic surgery since completing his medical degree in 2004.

Over the years, Dr. Marashi has performed more than 700 procedures and has honed his particular skill set (as the demand for vaginal surgery has increased) and is now so specialised that surgeons travel from all over the world and spend up to $10,000 to shadow him for a day or two.

In Australia, the demand for designer vagina surgery or labiaplasty is swiftly growing. Medicare claims for labiaplasty more than tripled between 2000 and 2013, according to a new ABC health report. And this doesn't count the women getting the procedure done privately.

Cosmetic vaginal surgery

What exactly does he do? The most popular procedures are labiaplasty and vaginoplasty, he tells me. However cosmetic surgeries only make up half of his practice; Dr. Marashi spends the rest of his hours in the clinic doing laparoscopic surgeries for pelvic pain related to endometriosis and fibroids.

"I always tell my patients, it is not about what you need, it is about what you want," he explains, adding that he will never tell a woman that she needs something cosmetic done to her lady parts. But if she wants it, she should do it.

"It's about making women's lives more comfortable, giving them self confidence and making them feel sexier," he says. "Also to increase awareness around the procedures so that it is no longer a taboo topic."

And why should it be? We spend thousands of dollars over the years on tattoos, haircuts, body piercings, makeup and even breast augmentation and Botox - elective procedures which were once as taboo as the idea of women who nip and tuck their perfectly adequate nether regions.

He walks me through the slate of procedures on offer using a handful of before-and-after vulva shots - which are all stored on his iPhone, of course. Dr Marashi discusses exactly what changes he made to each vagina in detail as he flips casually through some of his proudest work. The uneven labia minora that he's trimmed, a vaginal opening that he's tightened, labia majora that have been expertly plumped, a G-spot that has been amplified, a clitoral hood that has had the strings tightened, so to speak.

While it's less common, he has also built stand-in hymens for women to prove their virginity, for religious purposes, before marriage, and has performed clitoral reconstructions for victims of genital mutilation.

Dr. Amir Marashi. Photo: Supplied

The surgery

Dr. Marashi's patient for the day is a 32-year-old woman who hasn't had children and is looking to have one side of her labia trimmed to line up perfectly with the other side, which he assures me is a "very quick, straightforward procedure".

I'm standing in scrubs in the corner of the room while the woman is lying on the operating table, out cold, intubated and with her legs resting in stirrups. Everything from the waist down has been shaved to avoid infection and there's a team of three standing by - a nurse, a surgical technician and an anesthetist.

Frank Sinatra's The Way You Look Tonight is playing gently through the speakers. Dr. Marashi explains he usually listens to Sinatra to get the right side of his brain working - the creative side.

I ask a member of his team at this point how long the whole thing usually takes, worried for the first time that I might actually faint. She explains that each and every surgery is different, depending on what the patient wants done. "We like to think of it as art. You can't rush art," she smiles.

Positioned on a stool in between the patient's legs, he snaps a quick "before" pic on his iPhone before getting started. He explains he always does this to show the patient once they're awake.

Slipping on a pair of gloves, Dr. Marashi gets started, chatting away to me about anything from Australia's healthcare system to his weekends spent in the Hamptons while he uses a thick black Texta to mark the areas he's going to cut on the patient's vagina.

The next part is a little confronting. I'm invited to step closer to get a better look, but I assure him I can see everythingggg in detail from where I'm standing. But the hard-to-watch stuff only takes a few minutes and there's surprisingly very little blood. I don't faint, which is a big victory.

He also performs another quick bit of surgery, explaining that the woman asked to be a little tighter down below.

Before I know it, Dr. Marashi is doing tiny perfect zig-zag stitches and I can see the patient's left side is already beginning to look exactly like her right side, despite a small amount of swelling.

The anesthetist assures me he will begin to wake her up as soon as Dr. Marashi is finished, saying the women always leave the practice the same day they walk in - often within half a day - unless there are complications.

As far as the downtime, he recommends no sex for six weeks, and a few weeks spent taking it easy - no bike riding, intense exercise, or wearing super tight jeans.

So, how much does it all cost? He never likes to speculate, but says he tells women they can leave with a perfect peach for under $US10,000. And the non-surgical Femilift, a vaginal laser tightening treatment - and favourite among the Real Housewives - will set you back about $US3,500 for three sessions.

Each patient wants something slightly different, but Dr. Marashi assures me of the hundreds of women who have walked out of his office, not one has been disappointed with the results.

I couldn't leave Vaginaland without getting a quick selfie with 'Vagilangelo', at his request.

Charlotte Willis is whimn’s New York editor and writes about everything from breaking news and Trump’s latest tweet storm, to the weird and wonderful things happening in The City That Never Sleeps. Forever in search of a decent flat white to write home about, as well as NYC’s “best rooftop bar”, she can't get enough of the concrete jungle she now calls home. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter for #realnews.